by Chris Billowsin Think (Speculation)0 comments
Life is full of choices at times. Sometimes we feel as if we have no choice because we are forced to do something. But generally, most societies do allow some degree of choice. In the West, choice is directly tied to the concept of human rights. Now the quality of our choices is pretty diverse. There are Easy Choices, Hard to See Choices, and Hard to Choose Choices. The Easy Choices are those that have clear consequences. A good choice would be something that creates a positive outcome while a bad choice would create a negative outcome. Few people would intentionally make choices that have negative consequences for themselves. The Hard to See Choices are those that have long term consequences that we are unaware of. The nuclear disaster in Japan is a great example of this. Because human beings are so predisposed to thinking short term, they are guilty of making short term choices and ignore the long term consequences. If the company officials did a long term evaluation of building nuclear plants near oceans and fault lines, perhaps they would not have proceeded as they did. Maybe they still would have, believing the long term risk is not […]

by Chris Billowsin Think0 comments
I have come across a series of books influenced by Carl Jung and it has me looking differently at personality and who we are. Carl Jung adopted the notion that there are layers to our personality. Perhaps if you asked him the question ‘Who Are You?’ he would have responded that we are complicated and have layers, like an onion. The first layer is the public persona that represents all of the material things associated with us such as our titles, our possessions, our associations, and our accomplishments. This stuff is always being accumulated or lost or moved around. Its the crassest level of who ‘you’ are. The layer below that is the private persona that is the collection of physical, sociological, psychological, and metaphysical elements that create your time/space perspective. This layer guides your way of interacting with the world, but is also dynamically changing. Its the personality level of who ‘you’ are. But there is also the level below known as the psyche level which is even more fluid and subtle. At this layer of who ‘you’ are we would find feelings, emotions, intuitions, reactions that you experience but generally cannot articulate. It is all very gut-level feeling. […]

by Chris Billowsin Think0 comments
I have worked in health care for the past fifteen years. I have seen at least over a thousand clients and as a professional case manager, my job is to help facilitate a portion of their care. It recently occurred to me that despite the vast array and variety of diseases, accidents, and disabilities these individuals may have what appears to be five general / macro methods that sickness and disability is visited upon us. 1) We are born with it through our genetics such as Muscular Dystrophy, Cystic Fibrosis, etc. 2) We suffer an unfortunate physical event such an Accident, Assault, or Attack. It could be a car accident, an injury suffered at birth like Cerebral Palsy, or we could be attacked and injured by a mugger. 3) We suffer a random or complex microbe event that attacks us such as Bacteria, Virus, or Spore. 4) We suffer from a confused immunity system such as Rheumatoid Arthritis, Cancer, or Lupus. 5) We self inflict our own unhappiness and injury such as through a failed suicide attempt, alcoholism, smoking, etc. So what is the point of sharing something so depressing? I am not sure, but it just seemed interesting to […]